THE MISERY

Stay away from negative people, they have a problem for every solution.

Albert Einstein

In my experience there are two basic sorts of Miseries, the Passive and The Active.

The Passive Misery is the person who has that mind set where nothing gives them any joy. It’s hard to know if they are born with this attitude or it is a learned behaviour but it’s like their sunshine is constantly hidden behind a black cloud that hangs over their head. They are the sort of people who’s presence can cause other people’s head’s to drop and shoulders to slump. They automatically find the bad in any good news, their own or other people’s.

‘Congratulations! You’ve just won £5,000,000 on the lottery’

‘I suppose I’ll have to pay taxes on it so most will be gone before I see it.’

or

‘John has booked a holiday in Mexico’

‘Let’s hope he doesn’t get sick over there or shot up by drug traffickers’

It’s impossible to get a Passive Misery to see anything but the negative connotation, effects or results of any given situation or action.

Sadly these people tend to be completely unaware of what they are like and the effect they have on people. They don’t understand why people lose patience and lose interest but just accept it is the way life is giving them one more thing to be miserable about.

The Active Misery knows they are miserable, is quite proud of the fact they never think anything good of anyone and see nothing positive in life. Life for them is a hard, harsh place and all their energy is focused on proving it to themselves over and over again and they scan every possible horizon to find things to be miserable about. What’s more if they can’t be miserable for their own sake they will seek out someone or something else they can be miserable for. These are the sort of people who follow tabloid and gossip magazine stories and take up arms on behalf of some C list celebrity because of a supposed insult levelled at them by another C list celebrity.

An off shot of the Active Misery is the Aggressive Misery. Not only are they miserable in their own right but they are determined to make others around them just as miserable. They will do this by; being difficult and disagreeable to get along with, questioning and arguing every little detail in a day, relaying information they think will upset you in some way making you either angry or sad, gossiping about you and even outright personal attacks. Often this sort of thing is done under the guise of ‘For you own good’ because if there is one thing the Aggressive Misery can’t tolerate is the idea of other people not being miserable.

There is not much you can do for A Misery, they either lack the self awareness to know there is a problem or revel in the problem and see no reason to change it. The best thing to do is smile when you strike that match and walk away as that bridge burns.